Mark Allen suffered more Crucible misery as he was knocked out in the first round of the World Championship for a second successive year.

WORLD Open winner Mark Allen is out of the World Championship after suffering an early exit for a second year running.

History repeated itself for Allen after Mark King stunned the world number six with a brilliant comeback victory which secured him a place in the second round. A year ago Allen was surprisingly knocked out in the first round by Cao Yupeng.

King looked down and out of the contest when Allen turned the match to his favour leading 8-6 after trailing 5-4 at the close of the morning session.

But King fought back and produced his best snooker to claim four frames on the bounce to set up a last 16 meeting with either Ding Junhui or Alan McManus.

Allen’s defeat followed John Higgins’ exit earlier in the day after he crashed out of the tournament in a shock defeat to Mark Davis.

Another man who made it through to the next round this evening is 2006 world champion Graeme Dott who won the two frames he needed to wrap up victory against Peter Ebdon – in a match which lasted more than seven hours.

Leading 8-6 from this afternoon’s session, Dott won both of the two frames played and sealed the win with a 100 break. The Scot will face Shaun Murphy in the next round.

The night’s other game saw an impressive display from Crucible debutant Ben Woollaston who was playing last year’s runner-up Ali Carter.

Despite losing the opening frame, the Leicester cuemen showed no sign of nerves and held his own winning the next three frames.

But after the mid-session interval Carter found his range and won four of the next five frames to take a slender 5-4 lead going into Tuesday night’s final session.

World Championship 2013 – Day 3 Key Points

Two of the world’s top seven players suffer shock first round defeats – John Higgins and Mark Allen.

Graeme Dott grinds out a 10-6 win over fellow former world champion Peter Ebdon.

Ben Woollaston and Dechawat Poomjaeng make impressive Crucible debuts with the latter earning a 5-3 overnight lead over Stephen Maguire.